February 16, 2014

If UGA can go 3-3 in their remaining 6 games, they would likely lock down the 3 seed in the SEC Tournament. With a one game lead and the tie breaker, Ole Miss would have to go 4-2 to pass us.

UT, Mizzou or Mizzou would have to go 5-1 in that span or better depending on the tie breakers.

Ole Miss has games remaining:

Home - UK, UF, Bama and Vandy

Away - TAMU and ARK

It's not impossible to imagine OM winning at TAMU and going 3-1 in the other home games. But it's no slam dunk.

No way LSU can go 5-1 with their remaining road games. And frankly, I only see 1 or maybe 2 SEC teams that can go 5-1 over that period.

This is up to UGA. It's the first time the basketball team has been in control over its destiny at this point in the season in over a decade. Granted 12 years ago, we were talking about the Big Dance and not the NIT Sock Hop, but still. This is our hill and these are our beans.Win at South Carolina and at home vs Mississippi State and we only need 1 more among the other 4 games to likely take the 3 seed. The three seed would do several things:

1. Give UGA a double bye in the tournament. We haven't played on Friday that often.

2. We would get a manageable game on Friday in Atlanta against the 6, 11 or 14 seed. We have only seen Saturday in the Tourney twice in about 30 years. We have only seen Saturday in Atlanta ONCE and the damn arena gates were locked.

3. Give us a strong case for the NIT. The 3rd place team in the SEC even at 17-13 with a weak RPI (our RPI is only 89 right now per ESPN) is a viable team for the NIT. Win one in the SECT and you're at 18-14 and even with the weak RPI..that probably does enough to make the NIT.

I said before the season that regardless of what I think about Fox as a long term solution here...if he makes the NIT he deserves another year.

Win 3 more games and it's a no brainer that he would stay likely with a one year extension to avoid derailing recruiting. This is up to him and the team. They control their post-season fate. Fail to make the NIT, and I would be more than eager to move on and try another coach.See Also:

5
comments:

Dawg in Beaumont
said...

Exciting stuff considering what I thought about this team back in December. I know it is getting ahead of things a bit, but if we close out the regular season 3-3 (placing us at 17-13 overall) and win one in the SEC tourney then fall in the semi's we'd be 18-14 and probably an NIT team.

Suppose we somehow go 4-2 in these last six and have the same SEC tourney scenario (win in the quarters, lose in the semis). We'd be 19-13 overall. I know the SEC is bad this year, but do yall think we'd get any bubble consideration in that scenario?

I don't see any way we get into the NCAA tourney unless we win the SEC tournament. We've got too bad and too many losses. Maybe if we hadn't lost to Davidson & Temple to open the year, but even then we've still got iffy losses to Tech, Nebraska, & Auburn and no real signature win. @ Mizzou is probably our best win followed by Ole Miss & LSU, and they're all failing down the stretch for bubble consideration themselves.

The SEC is a mid-major classed basketball conference this year, and will be lucky to get 3 teams in.

our RPI is now 85. Extremely unlikely we can get it up another 50 points in 6 games to lock in the NCAAs. If we win the next 6 that puts us at 20-10 (14-4). Even if we won 1 in the SEC Tourney, I'm still not sure that gets us in. We'd probably have to make it to Sunday and that would put us as 22-11.

Even at 22-11, with the RPI's of the teams we have left, we'll still not get to guaranteed range. Our max RPI range right now is lower 50s (considering we have games against no teams in the top 50 in RPI and would likely need to beat UK or UF to get to Sunday).

The only thing in our favor/benefit will be a 9-1 'last ten' and the semifinal SEC win.

If we'd won any two of Tech, Davidson, Temple, and Auburn, we'd be at 16-8 with an RPI in the high 50s. It'd be a whole different ball game then.